Hospitals prepare to return to city water

Toledo-area hospitals are preparing today to flush out their water systems and move back to using city water again by the end the day.

ProMedica Health System, Mercy Health System, and the University of Toledo Medical Center, the former Medical College of Ohio, are all instructing their employees to not drink tap water in their facilities until the water lines have been flushed out.

Top officials from all three hospital systems are meeting today, planning their recovery or restoration process to get back to normal operations.

A spokesperson for UTMC said both the hospital campus, and main campus in West Toledo, will be flushed out and that they sent an internal memo to employees instructing them not to use the water until that happens.

ProMedica had been relying on water supplied from one its vendors, Sodexo, and officials are not sure when the flushing process will begin. ProMedica is sticking with its plan to cancel all elective surgeries today, said spokesperson Tedra White. She said ProMedica officials are still deciding what will happen Tuesday, and they will notify the public and patients as soon as possible.

Mercy, which did not cancel elective surgeries during the water crisis, has also asked its employees not to drink the tap water until the system is flushed out.

“We will be flushing our system within the next hour,” spokesperson Kathy Valtin said.

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